The foothills of the Adirondacks are bestrewed in a fresh layer of snow. The air smells coniferous and fresh. The village of Lake Placid is an old one, with grave markers dating back to the mid-eighteen hundreds and houses made of wood chopped down before anyone currently living. It's early January, and the temperature is negative one degree.
Selene drives through the main road lined with shops that have clouds of smoke growing like mushrooms from their roofs. Past the local lumber yard, the Clark Hospital, her old high school, and what used to be her favorite coffee shop, 'Au Bon Cafe,' which is French for 'The Good Cafe.' The Bible burns a hole in the passenger seat. Ice crystallizes on the car's windshield wipers. She's still gripping the steering wheel as she rounds the lake and nears the impending gate to her parents neighborhood. She rolls her window down to punch in the code, flurries of snow float in and land on the door's interior before melting upon contact.
Her parents home is designed to emulate a Swedish chateau with all the trappings of a modern home, centralized heating and cooling system, heated tile floors, a water filtration system, surround sound. When she parks in the drive way the windows are dark and many of the bushes are sodden with round mounds of snow. The house has two turrets on opposite ends, and scaling between them are a row of six large windows that jut out like eye balls with dominate brow bones. The house sees all.
Selene trudges over the snow covered stones and unlocks the front door with the key she'd inherited from her parents lawyer. Wisps of freezing wind toss her hair across her face and send shills down her spine. Inside it's silent, though in a matter of hours it will be filled with people Selene can not wait to never have to see again. She drops the keys in a small wooden bowl on an oak table next to the door. Bouquets consume the foyer, the tile by the walls, the table, and the first few flights of stairs, sent with names that Selene does not recognize. They've been coming ever since she arrived four days ago. The local deliverer is starting to feel sorry for her and hands them to her with a down turned smile. She removes her coat and leaves it in the hall closet before pouring herself a glass of water in front of the kitchen sink. Out past the vast windows in the living room is a frozen Lake Placid, motionless as cement until early Spring. For now the landscape is deep greens and white, trees that can withstand the freeze and snow that plans to accompany them. Winter winds bend them but they do not break.
Selene pictures the exact cove she was ice skating on when she broke her ankle sophomore year of high school. The other time she tried skating too late into March and fell through and was rushed to Clark Hospital with hypothermia.
Just past a thin line of white cedar trees looms the Clark' house, the Laurent's neighbor's since before Selene was born.
Alex's hair was redder and curlier when he was much younger. He used to have freckles too, which seemed to lessened as well over time. He and Jon were on the same school team for swimming and soccer. But Selene lived in Hollywood at that time and never made it back home to see either of them play. She would see pictures, though, tagged with her family on social media. She'd expected to be greeted by the same knotty knees and awkwardly long limbs four year ago when she's returned for her father's funeral. She had indeed been mistaking. What she saw was a matured, yet still youthful, man in his mid-twenties who was also burdened with the weight of being around so many relatives. But he was handsome in that smug, elitist, rich boy kick of way. Tanned skin, pouted lips, curls that appeared styled and messy all at once. He wore a vintage gold Rolex with a ruby face, and he stood a whole head higher then Selene, which means he has to at least by six feet and two inches. His eyes were a dazzling shade of emerald that stole a part of Selene she hadn't even known was there.
He likely isn't in town for longer then a day or two, yet Selene can't help but wonder if at any point he'd stare down at her family's house from the window in his bedroom and think of her. Suddenly, she's looking down at her right hand, flaying her fingers wide as if to examine it for markings. She still feels the phantom pressure he applied when she'd grabbed his hand. There is no room for embarrassment or shame, the act has already been committed. The base of each finger was lightly callused and the palm of his hand was large and dense like a baseball mitt. He seemed to have even leaned into her for the remainder of the service but she might be imagining things. He probably knew better then to speak actual words to her, which perplexed her further.
And then there is the kiss they shared four years ago in the shadows of her father's office. Her lips tingle with the memory, her hand shoots up to graze the flesh, her cheeks blush. Then the door bell rings.
YOU ARE READING
Her Pale Blue Eyes
RomanceA young man engages in a taboo relationship with a much older woman. Though the first time her legs spread for him is not the first time they have kissed. That was four years earlier. Now they have been reunited in undesirable circumstances on a dis...
